rootle

English

Etymology

Frequentative root + -le.

Verb

rootle (third-person singular simple present rootles, present participle rootling, simple past and past participle rootled)

  1. (of an animal) to dig into the ground, with the snout.
    • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 11
      Once, presumably, this quadrangle with its smooth lawns, its massive buildings, and the chapel itself was marsh too, where the grasses waved and the swine rootled.
  2. (of a person) to search for something from a drawer, closet, etc.; to dig out.
    • 2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 288:
      Bathed and changed, she rootled out Lambie from the bottom of her wardrobe.'

Anagrams

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